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Specifications:
Scale: 1:144
Size of Model: 1470mm x 158mm x 400mm
Material: ABS Hull, Wood plank-over deck, copper and brass parts
Drive System: 3 x 540 size, 3 x shaft & propellers
R/C system: 2 channal Radio Controller with one Servo, one Speed
controller
Complete and ready to run
The ship's hull is molded in strong GRP, while the
superstructure consists of laser-cut wooden and ABS parts. The model
also features a large number of small metal items, all ready-made
and factory-installed. The railings, catapult, companionways, ventilation
grilles, etc., consist of etched brass sheet components, as this
method produces finely detailed parts of a convincing scale appearance.
The hull, superstructure components, masts and fittings
feature a sprayed finish using matt paints and the many detail features
and fittings give the model a particularly interesting appearance.
The delicate rigging is also completely factory-assembled.
History of the Prinz Eugen
She was named after Prince Eugene of Savoy.
Prinz Eugen was the third ship of the Hipper-class heavy cruisers.
Like her sister ships, Admiral Hipper and Blücher, she was
built in the mid-1930s. During the planning and design stage she
was known as "Kreuzer J" (Cruiser J). Her keel was laid
at the Krupp Germania shipyard in Kiel on April 23, 1936, and her
full cost would be 104.5 million Reichsmark. Prinz Eugen was launched
on August 22, 1938, and commissioned on August 1, 1940. Considered
a "lucky ship", she survived to the end of the war although
she participated in only two major actions at sea.
On 24 May 1941, Prinz Eugen fought alongside Bismarck in the Battle
of the Denmark Strait against HMS Hood, hitting the British battlecruiser
at least once and starting a huge fire, and HMS Prince of Wales,
hitting that battleship three times. The Hood was sunk during the
engagement and the Prince of Wales damaged but the German ships
were still shadowed by British warships. Later that day she was
ordered off on her own from Bismarck, escaping the British ships,
and headed south to rendezvous with the tanker Spichern and prepare
for eventual commerce raiding in the Atlantic. After narrowly avoiding
several British heavy units which were looking for Bismarck, she
arrived at Brest, France, on 1 June 1941. The port was regularly
bombed by the RAF, and on the night on 1 July Prinz Eugen was hit
on the port side behind the bridge. The bomb detonated in the forward
main artillery command centre, killing 60 of the crew.
From August 1944 onward, Prinz Eugen was deployed to shell advancing
Soviet troop concentrations along the Baltic coast and to transport
German refugees to the west. On 15 October 1944, she collided with
the light cruiser Leipzig in heavy fog in the Baltic Sea, nearly
cutting the smaller ship in two. For 14 hours the two ships drifted,
locked together, until they could be separated. Prinz Eugen was
repaired at Gotenhafen (Gdynia) and continued her tasks of shelling
Soviet land forces and evacuating German refugees. On 29 March 1945
she left Gotenhafen for the last time with a load of refugees, reaching
Swinemünde on 8 April 1945. The ship then departed for Copenhagen
arriving on 20 April 1945. Lack of fuel meant that she did not leave
port again. At the end of the war, she was one of only two operational
German cruisers left (the other was the light cruiser Nürnberg),
and was surrendered at Copenhagen on 7 May 1945.
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